Existing Home Sales

It was a brief decline this morning, but got ugly for a minute there. Apparently the miss in Existing Home Sales makes this the worst start of the year (2014) since 2007 and you remember what happened to property values in 2007.

First time home buyers represented 29% of all sales, cash buyers came in at 32%.

I was watching a local news station's report on home sales recently (South Florida) and they had a young couple, first time home-buyers who had bid on 17 properties and lost all 17 bids to cash buyers, however being on the board of directors of our condo association for the last 3 years and dealing with sales, foreclosures, etc. I can tell you the investor activity has gone from a fire-hose to a trickle.

When I recently sold a condo, the buyer bought it at asking price, site-unseen from New York, they were a couple looking to get in to the landlord business and hadn't even seen the property until they flew down for the closing, that's how insane this investor/landlord bubble has become.

Just like 2005-2007 when house-wives became real estate speculators, flipping houses until the bubble popped, I'm seeing much the same activity now with the "Landlord" business and when those who have no idea how the business works become the primary buyers, you know the end is near.

Another property bubble bust?